Tuesday, May 28, 2013

How much more difficult does it have to get?

I took this picture at sunset on the beach in front of where I live.

The beach and the ocean. This is where I live now. This is what I have in front of my apartment and I see every day.

It is hard to think that I will have to leave this for an unknown place where to start a new life. But hopefully it will be a place where I will be able to have a life, as I am tired of traveling all the time and having no stability, making friends to leave them again after a couple of years, just when I get close to them. I am tired of feeling home in a place to have to leave it again. Since I decided to get engaged, my life is not here nor where my boyfriend is, in the USA. I am also very distant from everyone here, as I don't want to get attached and then have to suffer as it happened when I had to leave France. So, although I do not look forward to leave the place where I live now, which represents one of my dreams (living in front of the Ocean and being able to take long walks on the beach whenever I want), I also hope finally at the age of 37 to be able to have a life, live in a place that I can feel it is my home, get a dog with whom to share my long walks, possibly make some friends with whom I can share my life without being afraid of leaving them any time soon, and be closer to my boyfriend.

I got a new job and a new place ahead of me and although I am currently terrified for all those huge changes in my life and although last time I lived in the USA I ended up with a huge depression (and not for a joke, but a serious depression that last about three years), I try to keep a positive attitude toward it, especially focusing on the good things.

But the truth is that if it was not because it is easier to find a job for two people in the USA than in Europe and the fact that my boyfriend has a job that could actually help us even if my salary will be quite low (for American standards), I would rather live with him here in Europe than going to the USA. I have nothing against the USA and there are things I like and dislike of every country where I lived so far... so it is not that. But my family and friends are in Europe and I am deeply European in my way of living....I am actually perfectly fit for a small European town, like where I am now.

This to say that the coming change does actually cost me some mental effort to get used to it, I get immensely sad when I think that communicating and seeing my family will be much harder than now (I keep wondering if they will visit me and how often we will see each other considering how much a flight ticket costs), and it costs me some work to stay focused on the positive things. But I manage. Some days are better some less good...but I manage. Until I get under a pile of difficulties like today.

To make a long story short. My boyfriend is American. I am Italian. I have much more flexibility in my job than him. He has very little holidays. He has a better job stability than me. It is easier to get a job for me in the USA than for him in Europe. I cannot stay in the USA on a tourist visa for more than 90 days over a year. It is much easier to get a permanent position there if I am either already in the USA on a working VISA or if we are married.

From all this, the decisions that followed thinking that our relationship would be easier.

September last year, my boyfriend and I contacted the consulate in Florence to ask information about green card, immigration procedure, etc. What we got told was that basically once we were married, getting a green card for a spouse would be easy and that while I could not live permanently in the USA without a green card or an immigrant visa, I could travel while waiting for the green card back and forth with my passport and on a tourist visa.

What instead we found out today was that if I apply for an immigration visa, I CANNOT travel to the USA. This to prevent that while people are waiting for the green card approval, they become illegal immigrants.This actually has nothing to do with immigration offices, it is something enforced by the border patrols....it doesn't matter if I can demonstrate that I am traveling to visit my husband but that I have a job somewhere else for now to which I want and I need to get back....no, no, no....I may be a potential illegal immigrant. I understand that they cannot make a special case for everyone, but how ridiculous is that I get married and then I cannot see my husband for how long it takes to get a green card (which may take more than 7 months), unless he comes to visit me?

Not only.....even more stupid....the place where I got offered the job would not request a working visa for me (which is much quicker to get and would make our lives much easier) because I previously told them that I would apply for a green card after the wedding....so, now they told me to apply for the green card and if I don't get it by the end of October, then and only then they will apply for a working visa for me, hoping that it will be done by the time I would need to start my job.....

Gosh, all this is so frustrating....how difficult does it have to be to just want to be in the same place as my boyfriend???? and plus...I am really sick of feeling rejected all the time because "I am not American or I am already a legal immigrant in the USA" ...first I had this for the numerous job applications I sent, then some of the members of my boyfriend family made me feel not good enough because not American (or not from a civilized enough place because it is not the USA), and now this immigration crap....................................

and a friend of mine just told me that her cousin got a green card for the USA through the green card lottery...............COME ON!!!!!!!!!!! are you kidding me? I have a job, I will have a husband there and I cannot even enter the country while applying for a green card.